


I Believe in Second Chances

by thecircleofstupidity



Category: BioShock, BioShock Infinite
Genre: Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea, Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Like ive been sitting here for an hour and realized i forgot to turn the oven on slow burn, Slow Burn, like really slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:06:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecircleofstupidity/pseuds/thecircleofstupidity
Summary: "“You and I both know what happens next,” she said, handing him the paper. “Let’s just get this over with.”You don’t have to let him win like this, said a gruff voice in the back of her head. Elizabeth squared her shoulders, holding her glare with Atlas. He sauntered over to the man next to him who held out a large wrench. He weighed it in his hand with a grin.“Well, love, if you insist.” He raised the wrench over his head, ready to swing down, and--it all happened almost in slow motion--she stopped his hand, gripping his wrist tight and twisting it until she could pull the wrench from his hand, ramming it into the nape of his neck."--AU where Elizabeth kills Atlas instead, finding Jack in Suchong's lab when she runs off to hide. Shenanigans ensue.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: I CHANGED THE TITLE FROM "Iterum Conari" because the original was just sort of a place holder till I found something else.
> 
> This au is my baby and if you like it and also thought the ending of Burial at Sea was bullshit, this is probably the fic for you

“Hey, sister. Over here.”

Elizabeth clenched her jaw, walking slowly towards Atlas and the two men that flanked him as the building shook and crumbled around her. Her eyes fell on Sally, struggling to worm her way out of the man’s grip, and Elizabeth took a breath, turning her cold gaze back to Atlas’ silhouette. More men appeared as she exited the alleyway into the tiny room.

“D’ya have it?” Atlas asked.

“I have it,” she answered.

“Give it over then,” he growled, stepping forward. He waved an arm at Sally. “I’m keen to get this brat off me hands.”

Elizabeth stepped forward, holding up the folded piece of paper. “You know what?” she started. “Andrew Ryan said that I was a rube. But he was wrong. I’m not the rube, Atlas.” She paused, pulling the paper back as Atlas reached for it. “ _You_ are.”

Atlas’ men closed in on either side as he glared. Elizabeth didn’t flinch.

“You and I both know what happens next,” she said, handing him the paper. “Let’s just get this over with.”

 _You don’t have to let him win like this_ , said a gruff voice in the back of her head. Elizabeth squared her shoulders, holding her glare with Atlas. He sauntered over to the man next to him who held out a large wrench. He weighed it in his hand with a grin.

“Well, love, if you insist.” He raised the wrench over his head, ready to swing down, and--it all happened almost in slow motion--she stopped his hand, gripping his wrist tight and twisting it until she could pull the wrench from his hand, ramming it into the nape of his neck. Elizabeth’s hands shook and she blinked as Atlas folded to the ground, the wrench falling with a clatter. _What just happened?_ Her head was swimming, eyes desperately trying to focus; Sally was screaming, the men stood in shock. One of them shouted something unintelligible, letting go of Sally’s arm, and adrenaline kicked in again. Elizabeth swept Sally up and hugged her to her chest, sprinting off back towards Suchong’s lab. She wriggled into the hole in the wall, stopping to drag an old bed in front of it as a barricade.

 _That won’t hold. You need to hide_.

She shook her head at Booker’s voice, but knew he was right. Elizabeth looked around, picking Sally up again, and jogged through a doorway, skirting around Suchong’s body drilled into the desk. She pulled Sally closer, covering her eyes from the grizzly scene. Elizabeth ducked around a corner into a hall she hadn’t been in before. It was lined with doors, most of them locked until she found one and slipped inside, shutting and locking the door behind her. She crouched down against the wall, holding Sally close, muttering for her to keep quiet as the men tried door after door. Heavy footsteps passed by, accompanied by swearing and someone trying to coax them out of hiding. The doorknob started rattling, a splicer shouted that it was locked and another shouted, “Move over!”.

The door creaked and splintered as the splicer tried to break it down but the door managed to hold. Elizabeth held her breath, waiting, and finally they gave up, stomping back down the hall. Elizabeth relaxed finally, registering that Sally was squirming in her arms, and let the little girl go. She closed her eyes, trying to get her bearings. She took deep breaths, rubbing her eyes as if it would get rid of the image of Atlas’ face, frozen in vague surprise as he collapsed. After a few minutes, she picked up on the sound of soft beeping. Sally pulled on Elizabeth’s sleeve, pointing at the large window on the other side of the dark room. Elizabeth slowly crawled to her feet, letting Sally lead her over to the window. On the other side was a young man, about her age, laying in a hospital bed, wires sending readings to machines, stuck all over his body. He was hooked up to a heart monitor. Elizabeth looked around for a door to get in and was surprised to find it unlocked. Sally hovered in the doorway as Elizabeth slowly strode over to the man. She was uncomfortably aware that he was in his underwear, but thankful he wasn’t naked. Elizabeth decided if she could wake him up, she’d find him some clothes to wear.

_Should you wake him up?_

That was an excellent question. How did she know he wasn’t some splicer experiment? Still, the longer she looked at him, the more her apprehension faded. Something in her gut told her he was relatively harmless. Even with her sudden lack of omniscience, Elizabeth found she could usually trust her gut. A closer look showed that he wasn’t hooked up to any life support, but there was an empty IV drip stuck into his arm. It had been morphine mostly, judging by the labels on the bag. Carefully, she pulled the needle out, hanging it over the hook so what was left of it didn’t drip onto the floor. One by one, she peeled off the pads holding the wires until finally all that was left was the heart monitor. She hesitated, thinking it might be best to leave that one in case she accidentally pulled off something important.

“May as well find him some clothes,” she mumbled to herself. Sally, still in the doorway, perked up.

“This way!” she said, dashing towards the door to the hallway.

“Sally, wait!” Elizabeth hissed, stopping the little girl before she could unlock the door. “Let me check that it’s safe first.”

She raised her hand, throwing out a foggy blast of Peeping Tom. The coast seemed to be clear and she unlocked the door, letting Sally lead on. Sally came to a stop a few doors down, standing on her toes to jiggle the door handle and huffing in frustration when it wouldn’t open. Elizabeth cracked a smile for the first time in what felt like days and knelt down, pulling a lock-pick from her breast pocket.

_Last one. Better make it count._

“Have I ever not?” she mumbled.

“Who are you talking to?” Sally asked, wide eyes gleaming in the dim lighting of the hallway. Elizabeth looked at her, then at the ground, then the door, focusing on the task at hand.

“No one,” she said, sliding the pick into the lock, listening and feeling for the tumblers to fall into place. After a few seconds there was a small click and Elizabeth smiled. “Got it.”

She opened the door and Sally bolted inside, quickly finding a row of lockers, most likely belonging to doctors and scientists who need a place to store their street clothes. It seemed like as good a place as any. It didn’t take long for Elizabeth to get the lockers open. A couple of them were jammed, never locked in the first place, and, after checking that no one was within earshot, the rest were easy enough to smash open with a heavy object. The trashcan next to the nearby desk held rather nicely. Most of the lockers were empty, but the two closest to the door held a long lab coat, a pair of dark-colored pants, a white t-shirt and a cable knit sweater hanging over a pair of shoes stuffed with socks. Elizabeth took the clothes and carried them back to the lab room. The young man was still lying, asleep, on the bed. She folded the clothes, set them gently on the floor for when he woke up and turned back towards the door.

“Are we leaving?” Sally asked. Elizabeth nodded, holding out a hand for Sally to take it but Sally stayed where she was, looking back at the man on the bed. Elizabeth sighed, knowing exactly what the little girl was thinking.

“It’s going to be a few hours before he wakes up,” Elizabeth reasoned. “We can’t just stay here, they may come back.”

Sally frowned, sitting on the floor.

“Sally,” Elizabeth said sternly. “We have to leave.”

Sally stayed where she was, continuing to pout, and Elizabeth frowned right back. Still, she could tell there was no reasoning with a child and she stepped out into the other room to lock the outside door. When she came back into the lab Sally looked slightly worried, as if she thought Elizabeth was just going to leave, but settled quickly back into her determined scowl. Elizabeth sat down next to her and crossed her arms.

“The _second_ he wakes up, we’re leaving.”

_You’re too soft on that kid._

Sally smiled.

\---

_A light breeze blew through the city, the sun shining bright with no clouds to block it. She sat at a table just outside a café. Her father sat across from her, looking out over the Seine. His face was scarred and rough, patches of dried blood here and there. He’d taken off his holsters as soon as they’d set foot on the ground and hurled them into the river. She’d done the same with her skyhook. It felt good to throw their weapons away._

_“I see why you wanted to come here,” her father said, looking at the people passing by. “It’s peaceful.”_

_She looked down at her hands, wrapped around her cup of tea. It was warm and the only thing really keeping her hands from shaking. She’d have to learn how to stop looking for some soldier coming around the corner to kill them. The two could start a new life, actually be a family, but it would be difficult. There are just some things that can’t be forgotten._

_“Elizabeth,” her father said. She looked back up at him but he was gone._

_“Booker?” She stood up and looked around, but he was nowhere to be found. She started to panic. “Booker?”_

_The sky grew cloudy and dark as a storm rolled in and the wind picked up, blowing her short hair around her face._

_“Pardon me.”_

_She whipped around to see Atlas standing behind her. He smiled, hand settled on the gun at his side. “Would you kindly--?"_

_Lightning flashed through the sky, thunder rumbling so loud it muffled the rest of his question. He stepped closer, putting a hand on her shoulder and she flinched._

_“Hey, would you kindly wake up? You can’t very well finish my plans while you’re asleep.”_

_What? He shook her a little, his smile turning hard._

_“I said wake up, you little--”_

\---

Elizabeth jolted up from her spot on the floor. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep and Sally was softly shaking her. The soft beeping of the heart monitor was almost comforting. Was that just a nightmare or some remnant of her lost omniscience? A groan from the man was enough to bring her out of her thoughts as she got back to her feet. His fingers twitched and his eyebrows furrowed. He was waking up. Elizabeth leaned over him, detaching him from the heart monitor, and held his face in her hands as his eyes opened. They were a soft, dark shade of brown and glazed over. She lightly slapped his face, trying to get him to focus.

“Hey! Can you hear me? We need to get out of here soon, can you walk?” she asked. His eyes focused, but they were full of confusion as he stared at her.

“You have pretty eyes…” he said finally and Elizabeth rolled her eyes, straightening up again. He was fine. He sat up and rubbed his temples, running his hands through his mess of curly, brown hair. He squinted down at his legs, half-crossed in front of him and his eyes widened with clarity.

“I’m...not wearing pants…” he said, his face turning red. His voice was soft and Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether or not it was from lack of use. She motioned towards the clothes on the floor and he stood, taking a second to regain his balance before pulling the pants on, then the shirt and sweater.

“Thank you,” he said, sliding his now socked feet into the shoes. He looked around the room, confusion returning. “Do you--why...why am I here?”

Elizabeth frowned. “I’m not sure. Sally and I were running from some splicers and we found you in here.”

His eyes flicked between her and Sally. “Splicers?”

Elizabeth paused. “You...don’t know much about this place, do you?"

He shook his head slowly, rolling back the sleeves of his sweater. Elizabeth noticed three chain links tattooed on each wrist. She sighed.

“You’ll figure it out soon enough,” she said. “Just stick close to me. I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible.”

He nodded, stepping closer. He was shorter than she thought, coming about up to her eyebrows, and very stocky. _A low center of gravity might do him some good_ , she thought. Elizabeth started for the door and Sally and the man followed.

“My name’s Jack, by the way,” he said, taking long strides to keep up with her. “Jack Wynand. What’s your name?”

Elizabeth hesitated, wondering whether she should give him a fake name or not, but decided against it. “Elizabeth Co--” No. That name left a bad taste in her mouth. “DeWitt. Elizabeth DeWitt.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jack said. Strangely enough, he sounded like he meant it. They slowed down, passing by Suchong’s body again and Jack froze.

“What happened here?”

“Big Daddy,” Elizabeth said, following after Sally. “I suggest you don’t fall behind, Mr. Wynand.”

“Oh, you can call me Jack,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the grizzly scene and following the two of them towards a hole in the wall. Apparently questions could wait. Elizabeth held out a hand for them to stop and shoved her way into the wall, throwing out another blast of Peeping Tom.

“Alright, I don’t see anyone,” she said, motioning for them to follow.

“How’d you do that?” Jack asked. “Some sorta magic trick?”

Elizabeth cracked a smile. If he thought that looked like magic, he’d be in for a shock soon enough. “When we get somewhere safe, I’ll explain everything, but for now we need to keep moving.”

The three walked slowly down the hall, coming out into the room. Jack stopped, mouth falling open as he looked up at the large window in front of him. Fish swam by, dashing away from a shark and leaving a trail of bubbles behind them. Neither Atlas nor his men were anywhere to be seen and the knot that had been growing in Elizabeth’s stomach loosened a bit. Maybe she hadn’t hit him hard enough to… She shook her head, noticing a piece of paper on the floor labeled “ace in the hole”. She picked it up and folded it smaller, putting it in her pocket before Jack could notice. He seemed to be preoccupied anyways.

“We’re underwater?” he said. He started nodding. “We’re underwater. Okay.”

“Do you need to sit down for a minute?” Elizabeth asked. Jack slowly shook his head.

“Nah. Nah, if I’m meant to get answers, they’ll come up eventually.” He squared his shoulders. “Which way now?”

Elizabeth looked around, finding what looked like a small door towards the Apollo Square. Seemed as good a place as any. “That way.”

Before they could make it more than a few feet out the door, loud, rumbling steps shook the room around them. Elizabeth froze and Sally’s face lit up as a large being in a giant, complicated scuba suit stomped its way through an archway across the open room. Sally pulled her hand out of Elizabeth’s, dashing forward.

“Mr. Bubbles!” she shouted. Jack, not liking the look of the drill attached to ‘Mr. Bubbles’ arm, grabbed Sally around the waist, lifting her into the air and away from the monster. He turned to see Elizabeth, staring at him with fear in her eyes as Sally started screaming. Mr. Bubbles’ green lights turned red as he roared and reared his drill. Jack gently put Sally down, but it was too late. Mr. Bubbles charged closer, aimed his drill and fired, sending the giant hunk of metal spinning straight for Jack. Elizabeth tackled him out of the way, shouting something that was drowned out by the sound of the drill spiraling into the wall behind them. The two lay on the cold ground, as Mr. Bubbles stomped over to Sally, the lights dotting its large face switching to a dull yellow. Jack tried to sit up, but Elizabeth held him down, her face buried in his chest

“ _Play. Dead_ ,” she said through gritted teeth. Jack let his head fall back and shut his eyes. Squinting through his eyelashes he saw Mr. Bubbles, lights now green, helping Sally up into a nearby vent. She stopped to look over at them, but disappeared down into the vent. Apparently satisfied, Mr. Bubbles stomped away. Jack tapped Elizabeth on the back to let her know it was safe and his heart skipped a beat when his hand came away red.

“Hey!” He sat up, helping her do the same and she waved him off, face contorted with pain.

“I--I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. We need to keep moving.” She stood, slowly, and straightened up. Jack stood too, a stern look on his face.

“Turn around,” he said. Elizabeth glared at him, but obliged. The lower back of her shirt was in tatters, ugly, red gashes left where the fabric had been. Thankfully, they weren’t very deep.

“The drill must have just barely hit me. It’s nothing to worry about.” Jack looked at her, eyebrows raised. “I’m fine. Let’s just keep moving.”

Jack looked skeptical but followed behind her. A small alarm in the back of her mind went off, telling her to stop and cover the open wound and she paused. _Oh god, I’m turning into my father_ , she thought with a sigh.

“Help me find something to cover this up,” said Elizabeth. Jack nodded, happier with that answer. The two ducked back into the smaller room and he told her to sit down, pointing at a larger piece of rubble, and she begrudgingly obliged.

“The place we just came from--it's a medical clinic right?” he asked.

“More or less.”

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.” Before she could protest, he was off back into Suchong’s clinic. He emerged again, after a few nerve-wracking minutes, with a box of what looked like gauze and a large wrench.

“Will this work?” he asked.

“Perfectly, thank you,” Elizabeth said, taking the box from him. She eyed the wrench in his hand and he looked down at it as well.

“Oh, I found it attached to a pipe in the wall. Thought it might be a good idea to have some sort of weapon.”

She nodded. “Smart of you.”

He smiled and sat on the floor across from her as she wrapped the bandages around her torso. Jack cleared his throat.

“Um, Miss DeWitt--”

“Call me Elizabeth,” she corrected him. _You really are turning into me_ , Booker laughed. Elizabeth rolled her eyes but Jack didn’t seem to notice.

“Sorry--Elizabeth--What exactly was that thing?”

“That,” she said, securing the bandage, “was a Big Daddy. It’s their job to protect those little girls.”

“From what?” he asked, looking a bit concerned. Elizabeth paused, looking at him before turning her attention back to the doorway.

“From splicers.”

“Steer clear of those too then, huh?” he said with a half-hearted grin. She didn’t return it.

“It would be in your best interests.” She stood, wincing slightly at the movement, but motioned for Jack to follow her. “Come on. That Big Daddy might come back. We should keep moving.”

Jack nodded and jogged to catch up with her. Elizabeth glanced at the vent Sally had gone through and let out an annoyed huff. Her entire reason for coming back to Rapture just disappeared. _Again_. Well, she found her once. Surely, Sally would appear again on the way out of the city. They had only been walking for a few minutes when suddenly something clattered around in the vent in front of them and Sally poked her head out of the opening. She smiled, apparently happy to see them alive and turned back into the vent. Elizabeth and Jack shared a look before Sally climbed out of the vent, dragging a small radio behind her. She handed it up to Elizabeth and a voice with a German accent, came through.

“ _My name is Tenenbaum. The little one has told me that you can be trusted. I think we can help each other out of here.”_

 _You can be trusted_ \--Elizabeth ignored the small bubble of guilt building in her chest and instead tried to remember where she heard that name before. After a few seconds it clicked.

“You worked with Suchong. On the little sister project,” she said. The radio crackled before Tenenbaum responded. Jack looked confused.

 _“Unfortunately. He and I could never see eye to eye when it came to the little ones. I have had very difficult time trying to smuggle them out from under him._ ”

“You won't have to worry anymore,” Elizabeth responded. “He's dead.”

“ _Dead? How did this happen?_ ”

“Found himself on the wrong side of a Big Daddy,” Jack said, eager to fill in what he did know. There was another crackle from the radio that may have been a sigh.

 _“Of course he did. Nevertheless I would still appreciate your assistance. Go to Apollo Square. From there I can lead you to where I'm hiding._ ”

Jack turned the radio over, hooking it to his belt.

“Which way to Apollo Square?” he asked. Elizabeth glanced around for a sign and spotted one through another archway.

“This way.”

The path to Apollo Square was clear but that didn’t stop Elizabeth from picking up the nearest weapon she could find. Jack gave her a wide-eyed look at the gun in her hand but she just shook her head.

“We’ll need it. Trust me. That wrench will only get you so far.”

Jack looked a bit worried but gripped the wrench tighter, nodded and followed her through the archway into the square. The pistol weighed heavy in her hand and she would much rather have found another crossbow. Still, better to be armed with a gun than not at all. Elizabeth heard voices and threw out an arm for Jack to stop, motioning for him to be quiet.

“What is it?” he whispered. Elizabeth used Peeping Tom on the room and saw the blurry outlines of at least five different splicers crowded around something.

“Splicers,” she hissed back, not moving a muscle. Glancing around, she found a vent against a far wall. “This way--and keep quiet. I’d rather we didn’t have to fight them.”

Jack nodded, the two of them crouching down and sneaking their way towards the vent. They worked their way around a pillar, the splicers coming into view, and Jack froze. They were gathered around a fallen Big Daddy and as he looked closer he saw their faces--a mangled mess of flesh and sores, features distorted almost beyond recognition. He jumped when Elizabeth pulled on his sleeve, gesturing for him to follow and, after one last look, he tore his eyes away from the splicers. They followed what looked like train tracks down the long room until they reached the wall on the other side. Elizabeth pointed up at a vent, bigger than the one Sally had gone through, just under a sign that read “Little Sisters’ Orphanage” and, without much explanation, hauled herself up into it. Jack assumed he was meant to follow. Once he had scrambled his way into the vent, the two of them sat for a minute, awkwardly crammed into the small space.

“Those were splicers?” he asked. Even at a whisper, his voice still echoed slightly in the vent. Elizabeth nodded. “What was wrong with---” he gestured vaguely at his face.

“They’re sort of...mutated?” She wasn’t sure how to explain it. “From the plasmids. In such a high dosage it...does things to you.”

He looked back over the splicers. “Like that?”

She nodded. “Like that.”

He paused. “What’s a plasmid?”

“It’s a sort of drug more or less,” Elizabeth explained. "It rewires your genetic code and allows you to do things you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.”

“Like see through walls?”

“Exactly. There are other ones too, like Old Man Winter which lets you literally freeze things in place, and another where you shoot lightning out of your hands. There’s a whole bunch of them.”

“Wait, but if you have some why don’t you look like them?”

“Like I said,” she started. “High dosage.”

The radio crackled to life, nearly scaring them both out of their skins and Jack scrambled to turn the volume down. The splicers didn’t seem to hear though, still preoccupied with the Big Daddy.

“ _You are in vent?_ ” Tenenbaum asked.

“Yes, next to the orphanage,” Elizabeth said.

 _“Good. Follow this vent until you see piece of paper. It will have child’s drawing on it. When you get there, go left._ ”

The radio died again and the two of them began to crawl their way through the vents until they spotted the paper. Sure enough, there was a drawing of a woman in a lab coat surrounded by little girls in different colored dresses. They were all drawn with crudely lined smiles and a small arrow in the corner pointing left. Elizabeth and Jack went left and Elizabeth stopped short. There was a sudden drop in the vents and she rolled onto her hip, pulling her legs out in front of her before dropping down. It was a bit further than she anticipated and she landed hard, but after a quick inspection decided nothing was broken and moved out of the way so that Jack could follow. There was an opening just ahead, leaking a dim, warm yellow light into the vent. The two of them crawled out into a small room that looked like it may have been a maintenance room at some point, now converted into a sort of home. Empty beds littered the walls here and there the further back the room wound, the more beds they could see as well as toys scattered on the floor. Elizabeth wondered vaguely what time it was before a little girl rammed into her legs. She looked down to see Sally, arms wrapped around her waist.

“Good, you made it in one piece.” A woman in a slightly oversized lab coat over what looked like an old grey sweater walked out to greet them.

“You must be Tenenbaum,” Elizabeth said. The woman nodded, flicking ash off of her cigarette.

“Time for bed little one,” Tenenbaum said, gently pushing Sally off towards the beds. Sally yawned and rubbed her eyes, mumbling about how she wasn’t even sleepy, but went off to bed anyways. Tenenbaum’s mouth twitched into something that could be called a smile as she watched her go. “She refused to sleep until you arrived. I have been looking after the little ones for a few months now. Picking them up wherever possible. But they are still gatherers and must go out so all I can do is provide them a place to stay. Then Suchong kept making new Little Sisters and it became difficult to keep up.”

Tenenbaum looked the two of them over. “But if what you say is true--Suchong is dead--then maybe this will be a bit easier. I need your help. You want out of this city yes? Then I can help you. Can we make deal?”

“That depends on our end of the bargain,” Elizabeth said. She hadn’t decided whether or not she could trust Tenenbaum yet. Tenenbaum stepped back into another room, mostly separated by a large grimy window. When she came back she was holding a bottle.

“I have worked on this since going into hiding,” she explained. “To turn Little Sisters back into regular children. It humanely kills slug in their bellies without harming the child. I give to you--” She held out the bottle and Elizabeth took it, handing it off to Jack. “You save little ones for me, I get you out of Rapture.”

“You can get us out of Rapture?” she said. It sounded eerily similar to the bold-faced lie she told Atlas. Still, she’d managed to pull that off in the end… “How exactly are you going to do that?”

“There is a man. By name of Sinclair. He has boat out of the city. He thinks it is great secret but,” Tenenbaum rolled her eyes with a shrug. “With the right coaxing he will help us.”

“And where do we find him?”

“In his building, of course. Sinclair Solutions main office. He should still be there.” Tenenbaum looked at the ground, eyebrows furrowed. “If he hasn’t been run off yet.”

“This turns those little girls back to normal?” Jack asked, raising the bottle. Tenenbaum nodded.

“I’m not sure if I--” Before Elizabeth could finish her sentence, Jack had already opened and downed half the bottle. He shivered.

“Tastes weird,” he said. “Like peppermint and cough medicine.”

He held out the bottle to her and, seeing as it didn’t seem to have any ill effect on Jack, Elizabeth took it and drank the rest. It tasted better than most of the plasmids she’d drank, but the taste still couldn’t be described as good and it felt gooey and warm as it went down. She made a face, setting the empty bottle on a nearby table. Tenenbaum smiled.

“When you save a little one, it will give you Adam from the slug. Use it as you will. Now,” she started, putting out her cigarette. She turned towards the nearest bed where Sally was sitting, clearly not asleep and listening to their conversation. Tenenbaum waved her over and Sally hopped off the bed, stopping in front of Jack. “Use the plasmid on this one. When you save the others, she will help them find their way here.”

 

Jack knelt down in front of Sally, glancing up at Elizabeth who shrugged. He looked back at the child in front of him, her glowing yellow eyes watching him with curiosity. Jack gently settled a hand on her head and focused, feeling the plasmid flowing through him. He shut his eyes, feeling a rush of--well, he wasn’t entirely sure how to describe it--and when he opened them again a little blonde girl with bright blue eyes stood in front of him, slightly dazed.

“Did I do it?” He looked up to see Tenenbaum with almost a relieved smile on her face. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Jack stood up and Sally shuffled over to her bed, this time going straight to sleep. Tenenbaum watched her, crossing her arms.

“It is late. You should go now, while the city is quiet. This way.” She led them over to an entrance to the sewer system. “This will lead you back into the city. Good luck.”

Tenenbaum turned back and left them behind. Jack looked at Elizabeth. She looked tired, like she’d walked through hell before she found him. From he’d seen of the city so far, he’d soon look the same.

“Looks like we got a job to do, huh?” he said, an attempt to lighten the mood.

Elizabeth sighed. “It would seem so.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I'm really sorry this took so long, but for the record I have a lot of this written out in bits and pieces I just have to actually connect the dots. Also apparently according to the google doc, all of what I have so far is about 50 pages and a little under 18000 words (holy shit). So this is gonna be kinda long when I'm done with it. Anyways, here's a list of things that kept holding me up on this chapter:  
> \- The only time I've really had to write was about 15 minutes on my lunch break at work  
> \- I kept having to figure out explanations for things that were purely game logic  
> \- I had to keep checking Tenenbaum's dialogue because her English is broken in a very specific way  
> \- I kept getting stuck on trying to not just make this "1st game + Elizabeth"  
> \- I have a couple other projects I'm working on  
> \- I had to stop and research really tiny details that were important to me  
> \- I kept thinking "oh this has to at least be just as long as the first chapter" and now it's 2000 words longer (whoops)  
> \- Also I could not for the life of me remember what the medical pavilion looked like so I've replayed the beginning of the game like six times before remembering "oh yeah this is technically a different Rapture I can flub details"
> 
> But anyways, it's here now and hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to write. Sorry about that! I'll stop talking now, here's this.

The walk through Apollo Square wasn't as bad as Elizabeth thought it would be. They managed to sneak past any splicers, eventually coming across a bathysphere station. Elizabeth started towards it and Jack followed, looking around like he was watching the ceiling for splicers, gripping the wrench in his hand tightly. The two crawled inside the bathysphere and sat across from each other. Jack reached over and pulled the lever.

“Where’s this thing taking us?” he asked. The answer wouldn't affect him either way, considering he knew next to nothing about this city. He was mainly just trying to make small talk.

“Well, according to the sign above the bathysphere in the station, we’re headed for a welcome center.”

“ _The Welcome Center will give you the most access to other areas in Rapture_ ,” Tenenbaum said. “ _There might be a map there you can take. Just remember to be keeping an eye out for the little ones--ig--an--_ ”

Tenenbaum's voice became garbled and distorted under bursts of static. Jack pulled the radio from his belt and smacked it a couple of times, fiddling with the dial until the static went away. Unfortunately the voice that came through wasn't Tenenbaum.

“ _I told you Atlas would betray you, did I not?”_

Elizabeth tensed.

_“And now you’ve picked up another stow-away,_ ” Andrew Ryan continued. _“Tell me, where did this one come from? I need to figure out how all these rats keep entering my city.”_

“What do you want, Ryan?” Elizabeth asked before Jack could protest being called a rat.

_“As I said, Atlas betrayed you in the end. And despite you bringing that decrepit building back to the rest of the city and letting even more splicers loose in the streets, you did something unexpected and proved yourself far more useful than I had previously thought. You’ve done me a favor, taking out what I hesitate to call a worthy enemy.”_

So maybe she had killed Atlas after all. Well, there was no time to let that bother her now. It was self defense. He had it coming. That was a terrible thing to say even if it was true, but Ryan’s voice brought her out of her thoughts before she could dwell on them.

_“I’ll offer one more time. Come work for me. You're wasting your potential wandering the city when you could help me rebuild it.”_

Jack gave her a questioning look but didn't interrupt.

“I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment,” Elizabeth replied.

_“You should know you wear my patience thin, Miss Comstock.”_ And with that, the radio cut out again.

“Comstock? I thought your name was DeWitt,” Jack said.

“I…” Elizabeth scrambled to think of a lie. She settled on a half-truth. “I had to live under a fake name when I got here.”

“Oh, okay.” She let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. Jack seemed to have a penchant for blind trust that she was sure would get them in trouble eventually. At the moment though, it came in handy.

“So who’s that Ryan guy?” he asked. Elizabeth paused, wondering why he wouldn't know that, but answered all the same.

“He’s the one who built the city. Or at least, he orchestrated the whole thing. The man preached on and on about how his city was free reign as long as you could earn your way, but if that way didn't line up with his ideals, you were nothing less than dead to him. He’s been trying to get me on his side since about a month ago. He says he sees me as some sort of asset he could use.”

“Guess I got lucky for company then,” Jack said with a smile. Elizabeth almost returned it and the two of them lurched in their seats as the bathysphere connected a little too hard with the airlock. The water around them retreated as the sphere surfaced, revealing a small station room with a door directly in front of them. The two went through it and into a long, glass hallway, fish and other sea life swimming all around them.

“If this was the first thing I saw, I think I wouldn't mind living here,” Jack said. Elizabeth was about to comment when an image flashed through her mind with enough force that she had to catch herself on the wall. She tried to look up at the hallway but it didn't look right. Everything was fuzzy, surrounded by static, and there was half of a plane embedded in the middle of the hall, water pouring in around it and she swore she could hear Atlas shouting in the distance and she shut her eyes trying to block it out--and suddenly it was gone. The hallway was whole and quiet once more and Jack held her shoulders, trying to steady her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, trying to get her to look at him. “...Your nose is bleeding.”

Elizabeth pulled away from him, wiping at her nose. “I’m fine. This--this happens sometimes. I’ll be fine, we just need to keep moving.”

She started walking in the direction labelled ‘Welcome Center’ and Jack half-jogged to catch up.

“Elizabeth, wait--”

“I said I was fine--”

“No, I mean,” Jack grabbed her arm and turned her back around, “look.”

She looked where he was pointing and her face flushed. In the middle of the hall, right where the plane had been seconds before, was a glowing, shifting strip of light, a hint of another image in the middle, almost like a hole in reality. A tear. How did it get there? Had she pulled it into existence on accident? Was she even still capable? Elizabeth slowly stepped towards it.

“What is it?” asked Jack, staying a few steps behind her. Elizabeth didn't answer, slowly reaching out a hand as if to touch it but she stopped, everything blurring again for a second and she froze. Her pinky was gone, a thimble where it used to be.

“Elizabeth?”

She blinked hard, clearing the static from her vision and turning towards Jack, still looking at her hand.

“I don't know what it is,” she lied. “We should keep moving.”

Jack nodded as she passed, keeping an eye on the tear until they were through the door and entering the welcome center. He didn’t seem concerned by her sudden missing pinky and she flexed her fingers, shaking the feeling.

_They seem to be coming back--those tears of yours. Looks like it’s starting to affect you too._

“But how is this happening?” she mumbled.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Nothing.” She wasn’t alone anymore. She couldn’t respond to Booker’s voice out loud. Elizabeth looked around. “I’ve been here before. A long time ago…”

“When you got down to this city right?” Jack said, heading for a flight of stairs.

“Um...right. Where are you going?” she asked, following after him.

“There's something up here. Some kinda vending machine I think? There’s a sign that says Plasmids.” At the top of the stairs on a little balcony was a Gatherer’s Garden, a label advertising ‘free sample!’ slapped on the front. A plasmid sat in the slot on the front of it. Elizabeth was surprised no one had taken it yet. Jack picked up the plasmid but he couldn't get the lid off of it. Instead there was a small hole, almost unnoticeable, at the top.

“It's a plasmid right?”

“Yes, I think so. It says ‘Electrobolt' on the side. I wonder if that's anything like Shock Jockey,” said Elizabeth.

_“It is more or less the same,”_ Tenenbaum said. _“When Ryan sank Fontaine’s store he took over plasmid business. Rebranded. And since drinkable plasmids cost too much Adam, Ryan changed them to be injectables.”_

“Injectables?” Elizabeth asked. Sure enough, an empty needle sat where the plasmid had been. Jack shrugged and picked it up, jamming it into the top of the bottle and filling the needle with the plasmid.

“Are you sure?” asked Elizabeth. “You don't have to if you don't--”

“Seems like the best way to defend myself,” Jack replied before jabbing the needle into his arm and injecting the plasmid directly into his bloodstream. As soon as the needle was empty, Jack dropped it as his hands started shaking, lightning crackling around them. He backed up against the railing, almost screaming and Elizabeth leapt forward to catch him as he tumbled over the edge. Her fingers grazed his sweater as he fell and landed with a hard thud at the bottom. A few bolts flashed before fading out completely.

“Jack?” He groaned and rolled onto his side. Thankfully he had only fallen far enough to hurt. “Stay there, I’ll be down to help--”

Voices echoed down the hall they’d just come from. From her spot on the balcony, Elizabeth could see two splicers coming down the tunnel, swinging their weapons around as they came closer. “Jack, don’t move.”

Jack didn't respond, laying still on the ground. The splicers entered the room, spotting Jack on the floor.

“This one looks like he just had his cherry popped!” said one of them, kneeling down next to Jack. “Bet he’s full of Adam…”

They hadn’t noticed Elizabeth on the balcony, aiming at them as they stepped closer. She shot the one that was still standing square in the forehead, causing the other to jump back in surprise as he looked up.

“You’ll pay for that!” he shouted, starting for the stairs. Elizabeth took aim again, but the splicer ducked out of the way, sending the bullet into his shoulder instead of his head. He cried out in anger, getting closer to the top of the stairs. She tried to shoot him again but the gun clicked. Empty.

“That’s not good,” she mumbled. Ice ran through her system as she prepared a blast of Old Man Winter. The splicer froze in a block of ice, one hand holding a pipe in the air. Elizabeth pushed past him, heading back down the stairs. Jack wasn't moving, but his breathing was normal, albeit a bit wheezing. The fall must have knocked the wind out of him. She started to sit him up when the ground started to shake around them, followed closely by a low grumbling whale call. Looking down the hall, she could see the Big Daddy stomping towards them. They needed to move.

\--

Jack’s head was spinning as he opened his eyes to see Elizabeth’s blurry form crouched over him before his eyes closed again. He blinked slowly, seeing the ceiling seem to move above him, then the room got darker and he felt like he was moving down some stairs before settling at the bottom. He blinked again and Elizabeth was sitting in front of him, snapping her fingers to get his attention. His head started to clear and a dull throbbing went up his back.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You fell over the balcony,” Elizabeth answered, checking him over. “But it doesn't look like anything is broken. How do you feel?”

“Like I got kicked by a horse,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “Not quite as bad though.”

“You’ve been kicked by a horse?” Elizabeth asked as she helped him to his feet.

“I grew up on a farm in Kansas. Went to go feed the other horse, first one decided he didn't like that.”

“That can't have been pleasant.”

“No, I broke my arm and three of my fingers,” he said. “Like I said, that fall was an upgrade.”

They came into a room with a wide window for a wall and a bathysphere waiting in the pool along another wall. Abandoned suitcases lay scattered about the floor, their contents strewn everywhere among trash from the overturned trash can.

“Where d’you suppose that goes?” asked Jack, nodding at the bathysphere. Elizabeth remembered the schedule board around the corner. They were all cancelled.

“I think back up to the surface. This might be our way up to the boat…”

“Think this is the map Tenenbaum was talking about?” Elizabeth turned away from the bathysphere to see Jack pointing at a large map on a pillar behind a sheet of glass. She studied it closer.

“It looks like it shows all the bathysphere lines to the major areas of the city. We’re here,” she pointed to the marker over the Welcome Center. “And the nearest area is the Medical Pavilion through that tunnel we came in.”

“Think there’ll be any Little Sisters in there?” he asked.

“I saw a Big Daddy head in that direction. If there’s a Big Daddy, there’s usually a Little Sister not two steps behind,” Elizabeth answered. “I wonder if there’s a way we could take this map with us so we can keep track of where we’ve been.”

“I can probably get it.” Jack gently pushed her aside, raising his wrench.

“Wait, I don’t think that’s--”

Before she could finish her warning, Jack smashed the glass out of the way and peeled the map off the pillar. He looked mildly proud of himself until a siren went off and two security bots flew haphazardly into the room. As soon as they spotted them, the bots started firing, sending the two ducking for cover.

“I’m out of ammo!” Elizabeth shouted over the gunfire. She froze one, but found she didn’t have enough Eve to freeze the other.

“What do we do?” Jack called back. Elizabeth looked around, trying to think. Her eyes fell on the bathysphere.

“Find somewhere to hide. Maybe it will go away if it can’t see us!” They both bolted for the bathysphere, Jack hurling a piece of trash at the security bot to get it looking the other direction as they scrambled inside. They got down low so they couldn’t be seen through the window. The bot sputtered around, scanning for them and, when it couldn’t find them, buzzed away.

“Good call,” Jack whispered. “Think the coast is clear?”

“We should be okay to--wait, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Elizabeth shushed him and they listened. After a few seconds a voice floated in their direction.

“The bathysphere’s still here!”

“‘Course it is! No one gets in or out since the splicers broke in, where else would it be?”

Elizabeth peeked out the window to see two men heading over to the bathysphere. Her eyes widened and her blood ran cold as she recognized them as Atlas’ thugs.

“You know them?”

“Unfortunately,” she mumbled. “You wouldn’t happen to have picked up another weapon would you?” Jack shook his head. “I didn’t think so. Can you fire Electrobolt at them?”

“Probably?” Elizabeth sighed. They were getting closer. “That will have to do.”

They moved as far off to the side as they could and waited. A few seconds later the door opened and two men stepped inside. They spotted Elizabeth first.

“Hey, wait aren't you--AGH!” Jack shocked the two of them and they fell to the ground in a crackling heap. He nudged one with his foot.

“Are they dead?” he asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. “I don't think so.”

She knelt down, taking the gun from one of them and rooting through his bag for anything else he might have.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked as she moved on to the second one.

“What does it look like? They might have some useful things like--” She found a bottle of Eve and held it up for Jack to see. “Like this. I imagine this may be the last bottle we find though, if the new plasmid system is anything to go by.”

“Better make it count then.”

Elizabeth popped the top off and downed it as fast as she could. She never did like the taste of it--almost like saltwater, but thicker and with a strong taste of vanilla like they'd tried to make it better--but plasmids were too useful to be picky. She took the satchel off of one of the men and slung it over her shoulder, putting the rest of the ammo she could find inside.

“Let’s head to the Medical Center and see what we find,” she said, stepping over the unconscious men and out of the bathysphere.

“Should we just leave them here?” Jack asked, waving a hand. “They might just take the bathysphere.”

“I'm sure it comes back down. And if it doesn't we’ll find another way out.”

Jack nodded, stepping over the bot Elizabeth had frozen. He looked at his hand, lighting jumping between his fingers.

“Why didn't I just shock it?” he mumbled. Jack stopped and knelt down, picking up the map he dropped and folded it so that they could just see the section they were nearby. He pointed at a spot. “According to this, there’s another atrium ahead, a restaurant, then the Medical Pavilion.” He studied the map a little closer. “It looks like Neptune’s Bounty is close too but we’d have to take a bathysphere.”

“We can always loop back through,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not as if we have anywhere else to be.”

Jack shrugged. The two of them continued down the tunnel, through the other atrium and up an elevator to a hallway. At the end was a door, big and metal like the rest of them, above which read “Kashmir Restaurant”.

“I could go for some food,” Jack said. Elizabeth tried to remember the last time she had eaten something that wasn't a Pep Bar and was concerned to find that she couldn't. Any thoughts of food were driven from their minds as the door opened revealing the chaotic mess that filled the room. Parts of the balcony had crumbled away, tables and chairs on their sides, banners fallen to the ground. A sign, barely hanging from the ceiling, read “HAPPY NEW YEAR 1959” in flickering lights.

“I wonder what day it is,” mumbled Jack as he wandered towards the stairs.

“So do I,” Elizabeth replied. “The last thing I remember, it was 1958.”

_You were down for two weeks, remember?_ Booker said. Elizabeth shook her head. She’d almost forgotten about him.

“Did you sleep through the new year?” Jack asked.

“...Something like that.” They made it to the bottom floor which was in more dissary than the balcony. It was mostly flooded, water pooling around the large statue of a man holding what was left of a globe. Letters wrapped around the globe, some missing, but it had clearly said “Welcome to Rapture”.

“What happened here?” she asked aloud.

“Hey what's this?” She turned to see Jack standing by one of the few tables still on its feet. He was holding something flat and rectangular with a few buttons and a speaker on the front.

“It's an audio diary,” Elizabeth explained. “People record messages or conversations for themselves. In order to hear it, we just need to press play.” She pulled the diary closer and did just that. With a shuttering click, it rewound and started its message. They could hear some sort of party going on in the background before someone began to speak.

_“Another New Year's, another night alone. I'm out, and you're stuck in Hephaestus, working. Imagine my surprise. I just guess I'll have another drink… here's a toast to Diane McClintock, silliest girl in Rapture. Silly enough to fall in love with Andrew Ryan, silly enough to --”_ The audio became garbled after what sounded like an explosion and gunshots with various voices attempting to come through. They could just make out _“Long live Atlas!”_ and _“Death to Ryan!”_ The woman--Diane--spoke up again, dazed and panicking. _“What… what happened… I'm bleeding… oh, God… what's happening…?”_

The audio diary clicked to a stop, having painted a clear picture of what destroyed the restaurant. Elizabeth suddenly remembered a conversation she’d overheard in Atlas’s hideout. They’d been planning an attack for weeks. She couldn’t help but feel she played some sort of part in this.

“You okay?” Jack asked. Her thoughts must have come through on her face.

“I know who did this. Atlas orchestrated this whole attack.”

“Ryan mentioned him. Who is he?”

Elizabeth’s face grew hard. “A con man fronting as a freedom fighter. And Andrew Ryan’s biggest nuisance.”

“Sounds like you met him.”

“We...worked together briefly. I wouldn't even call it that. He took something from me so I did him a favor to get it back.”

Jack was quiet for a minute, then, “He took Sally, didn't he?”

“How did you know?”

“You were hiding out in a hospital with a small child that wasn’t yours. Seemed like the most logical conclusion,” he said. He looked like he was going to say something else, but his eyes wandered across the room and he started off in that direction. “There’s a door. Might be a way out?”

Elizabeth followed after him. Upon closer inspection, the sliding doors were stuck, partially cracked open. On the other side, Elizabeth could see a pile of rubble. Even if they could manage to get the doors open, the way would still be blocked.

“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe there’s another way around. Come on.”

The two headed back for the stairs. On the upper level of the Kashmir there were two bathrooms in the corner, across from a line of payphones. Jack picked one of the phones up, listening for the dial tone, and shook his head. The line was dead.

“I'm not sure who we would call anyways,” Elizabeth said, glancing over to the bathrooms. There weren't any doors, the stalls hidden around the corner of a wall. There were a few pieces of rock and debris leading into the men’s bathroom. Elizabeth followed it and found a hole in the wall more than big enough for them to fit through. It opened into the rafters of what looked like a theater. She turned back and called, “Hey, we may be able to get out over here!”

Jack followed her into the men’s room and whistled when he saw the hole in the wall.

“We’re going to have to move carefully over these rafters but we should be fine to cross to those stairs over there.” She looked out over the rafters again. “Maybe we should go one at a time…”

“Ladies first,” Jack said. Elizabeth knelt down and took off her shoes. The metal on the rafter was spaced just enough that one heel getting caught could break her ankle. Or worse. No point risking that. She was halfway across when a door below opened and she froze. A little girl in a tattered red dress skipped through, humming to herself as she knelt next to a dead body and started harvesting its Adam. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. She'd more or less seen the gathering process before but that didn't make it any less disturbing.

“Everything okay?” Jack asked and she nodded.

“There's a Little Sister down there,” she said, making her way further across the rafters. Once she was on solid ground again, she slipped her shoes back on. They weren't the most practical but it was better than walking on broken glass. Jack started across and looked down to see the doors open again and a splicer step slowly through them, eyes locked on the Little Sister. Jack gestured for Elizabeth to look and she took aim from the balcony. Before she could shoot however, a low roar came from outside the doors and a Big Daddy came charging through, drill reared back. Jack stumbled across the rafters and the two of them started down the stairs, watching from behind a large window as the Big Daddy impaled the splicer on its drill. They flinched backward as it slammed the splicer into the window once, twice, three times before the glass finally gave way and the splicer lay dead, draped across the window sill. Thankfully the Big Daddy took no notice of them and its many eyes turned green as it knelt down to offer a hand to the Little Sister. It lifted her onto its shoulders and the two of them ambled out of the room. The radio on Jack’s belt crackled, breaking the heavy silence that fell over them.

_“There you are! I have been finding your signal since the bathysphere and am only just recovering it._ ” Tenenbaum snapped. _“Infernal device! I was saying before, the Big Daddies will not be an easy fight. I'm sure you have noticed this by now. If you are not careful, you will end up the same as this poor bastard in the window.”_

“Poor bastard,” Jack echoed, watching the body like he expected it to move. Just at the end of the stairs was a barred door, a lock and chain wrapped haphazardly around the latch.

“Very simple lock, I could pick this in my sleep,” Elizabeth mumbled to herself, examining the lock. She raised her voice, “...if I had a lockpick, or even a hair pin I could--”

“Here, let me.” Elizabeth pulled her hand away just in time for Jack’s wrench to come down hard on the lock, effectively breaking it and letting the chains loose.

“...or we could just break it.” Jack smiled as he pushed the door open. There were a few posters for plays and shows on the wall outside and just down the hall they could see the pile of debris blocking the exit from the Kashmir. They followed the hall towards a staircase.

“This looks like it leads to Rapture Metro,” Elizabeth said, pointing out a sign. She pulled the map out of her bag. “And that should lead to Medical.”

The Metro opened up off a wide staircase, the path to medical on the left, Neptune’s Bounty on the right. The entrance to Medical was barred off, a grate over the doorway. Elizabeth hummed in annoyance.

“Should we check Neptune’s Bounty?” Jack asked, headed for the entryway. He was barely a step away from the entrance when a similar heavy grate slammed shut in front of Neptune’s bounty, nearly taking off his nose. Flashing lights bathed the room in a dull red as an alarm sounded. “Guess not.”

“What’s going on?” Elizabeth called over the alarm, gripping her gun tighter. There was a loud clang as the gate to Medical suddenly opened.

_“It is Ryan! He has cut you off! Go to Medical, I have opened the gate, you can find a way through!_ ” shouted Tenenbaum frantically. The two of them shot down a short, twisting hall for the bulkhead to Medical, hearing splicers headed in their direction. They were almost through when the bulkhead door slid shut, lock spinning back into place. Jack tried to open it again but it wouldn’t budge. _“Try and hold on. I may be able to get the door open from here.”_

“What now?” asked Jack. The sound of splicers grew closer. Elizabeth used Peeping Tom, watching as foggy silhouettes appeared through the wall. There must be at least seven of them. Thankfully another gate had closed behind them. Sure, it trapped them in there, but it would keep the splicers at bay. Elizabeth made sure her gun was loaded. The gate might not hold long enough to get the door open. Suddenly the room flooded with a pale blue light and the two of them shielded their eyes against the sudden brightness as a screen behind the thick window lit up with Andrew Ryan’s face.

_“I cannot simply have you running throughout my city,_ ” Ryan said. _“Especially with the knowledge that you’ve smuggled someone else in. That knowledge has made me realize that I don’t know where you came from either, Miss Comstock.”_ The splicers were too close for comfort, clattering around at the end of the hall. Jack stood as close to the bulkhead door as he could, his right hand gripping the wrench, left hand crackling with lightning as he prepared for a fight. The oncoming threat didn’t seem to bother Ryan, his voice ever calm as he continued.

_“I had assumed you were just one of the rabble banished down to the depths with the rest of Atlas’s ilk. That was my first mistake. So tell me, friend, what was your plan? Find a way to destroy my city from the inside out? Loot what was left with your accomplices to bring back to the hellbeast you call a government? Which one of the bitches sent you? The KGB wolf? Or the CIA jackal? Here’s the news: Rapture isn’t some sunken ship for you to plunder. And Andrew Ryan isn’t a giddy socialite who can be slapped around by government muscle. And with that, farewell--or, Dasvidaniya. Whichever you prefer.”_ Ryan’s face flickered and was replaced by a silhouette of a tower behind the words “please stand by”. They didn’t have long to watch it as splicers flooded the area in front of the monitor, banging on the glass of the window, causing it to crack. It wouldn’t hold much longer. The two pressed themselves against the bulkhead, bracing for the onslaught, and suddenly, miraculously, it opened.

_“Go! What is it you are waiting for? Go now!”_ Tenenbaum shouted. Jack and Elizabeth stumbled through the doorway, Elizabeth slamming the bulkhead shut as Jack spun the lock to get the other side open. As soon as the door was clear, they rushed into the Medical Pavilion, leaning on the wall.

“That was very close,” said Jack. Elizabeth nodded, smoothing out her shirt.

“I’ve been through closer.” She pointed down the hall where the room opened up. “This way.”

The lobby of the Medical Pavilion was in considerably better shape than the Kashmir, although eerily quiet. Across the room, flanked by two curved staircases was a reception desk. A pair of pneumo lines ran overhead, one leading down to the desk, the other disappearing through to the room past the balcony.

_Too bad you don’t have your air-grabber. Thing could come in handy_.

“Place is deserted,” said Jack, looking around. “Looks like the way through is up there.”

They made their way upstairs only to find the doorway locked off by another gate. Jack shook the bars as if that would open it and shrugged when it didn’t.

“Dr. Tenenbaum, how do we get this door open?” asked Elizabeth.

_“Behind you is door to emergency access. There should be a switch._ ”

“Thank you.” They walked back down the stairs towards a small door that slid open when they got close. The room behind it was dark and industrial, pipes and wires covering the metal walls. Around the corner was a bathysphere underneath a sign that read ‘EMERGENCY ACCESS: NEPTUNE’S BOUNTY’.

“That could be our way out of Medical,” said Elizabeth. Jack wandered up the metal stairs to find a switch on a dashboard. He flipped it and lights flashed red again for a minute while a screen next to him blared “ACCESS DENIED” before the switch clicked back into place as Elizabeth joined him at the top of the stairs.

_“You will need key from Steinman. He will be in cosmetic surgeries,”_ Tenenbaum said. _“However I was actually leading you to this door behind you. The switch in there opens the gate.”_

“Oh.” The door opened into a slim hallway with a room at the end that overlooked the Medical atrium. Sure enough, among a mess of buttons and levers, another large switch sat in the middle. Elizabeth flipped it and with a resounding _clang_ doors and gates all over the Medical Pavilion sprang open.

_“You will be needing to be careful. The noise will have attracted splicers.”_

“Will do,” Jack said. There was a clatter just outside the hall. “Someone’s coming.”

The two of them tensed, seeing someone coming their direction with a gun. It didn’t seem to be a splicer. If it was someone else they needed a cover for being back there. Elizabeth thought quickly, turning to Jack.

“I need you to play along. Also, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologiz-- _ow!_ ”

She kicked him in the shin, pulling his arm around her shoulders as they limped closer to the figure in the hall. The man turned his gun on them before realizing they weren’t splicers.

“What are you two doing back here?” he asked.

“We needed to get into Medical,” Elizabeth explained. “We ran into some splicers on the way home.”

“I think my ankle’s broken,” Jack said pointedly. Elizabeth winced an apology at him and thankfully the man didn’t notice. He looked at Elizabeth skeptically, eyeing the bandages around her middle. In hindsight, she thought, it would have been more believable for Jack to be supporting her. But the man shook his head, seeming to decide it wasn't his business.

“Oh, well lucky you managed to get the door open,” he said. “I’m not sure if there are any physicians in since it's so late, but considering there’s a security alert going on, you two may as well settle in for the night.”

“What are you doing back here?” Jack asked. The man shouldered his gun and they noticed the maintenance label on his uniform under a name patch that read 'Xavier’.

“Splicers came through here about two weeks back. I’ve been hiding back here since.” He stepped aside. “You two should get out of here. Good luck finding a doctor. And be careful!”

They moved past him, assuring him they would be, and moved back out into the lobby. They kept up the façade until they were through the doorway and sure the man couldn’t see them anymore. Jack leaned on the wall rubbing his shin.

“That hurt. What the hell are your shoes made of anyways?” he said. Elizabeth shrugged.

“Sorry, I panicked.”

Jack straightened up again, patting her on the shoulder as he passed by. The two of them walked down the hall, through the door into the Medical Pavilion. The room ahead of them was expansive, various medical buildings lining the wall with signs pointing to more of them downstairs. It was clear that a pack of splicers had torn their way through--posters pulled from the walls, holes in pillars, scorch marks on the floor.

“Where do you think we should try first?” Elizabeth asked. Jack pointed at the stairs across the room.

“I think working our way up from the bottom would be our best bet.”

They crossed the room carefully, keeping an eye out for any splicers that might jump them from an open doorway and went down the stairs only to be greeted by a wall of ice. Looking up, they could see a broken pipe, ice coming out of it and growing into the frozen mass blocking the doorway.

“Great,” Jack said, hands on his hips. “Any chance there isn’t a Little Sister in there?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “They travel through the vents.”

“Great,” Jack said again.

“If we only had some sort of--”

“Fire?”

“--we could melt this and get through.”

Jack thought for a second. “I think I saw a place upstairs called Eternal Flame. Not sure they’d have fire but.”

“That's as good a place as any to start,” said Elizabeth. “Let's go.”

Eternal Flame turned out to be a crematorium with two levels to it. The first room of the bottom level left them with nothing but an extra syringe of Eve. Elizabeth hesitated putting it in her bag. They had no idea where that needle had been, but they couldn't risk not having it later. As they moved on towards the next room, the radio crackled.

_“Be careful. There is a security camera.”_

Sure enough a sweeping red light filled the room, cut off by the brick furnace in the middle that they stood behind. They waited for it to pass and ran around the other side, pressing themselves against the wall underneath, just out of sight. Jack looked up at the camera, chewing on his lip, before finding a crate and dragging it over.

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.

“There’s a panel on the bottom here,” he said, reaching for it. “Not the best with electronics but I wanna try something. Oh, whoa.”

“What is it?”

“It’s some kind of electrical plumbing system.”

“A what?” Jack stepped a bit to the side so she could see. Instead of wires, the camera's system seemed to run on some sort of electrical fluid. “I wonder if I could…”

Jack trailed off, tongue sticking out of his mouth as he fiddled with the tiny pipes and suddenly a spark flew out, Jack pulling his hand back, watching the pipes click back into place like they were on a failsafe. He tried again, flipping tubes and switching them out until the camera gave a shuddering click and the light turned to green.

“What did you just do?” Jack hopped off the crate and stepped in front of the camera before Elizabeth could stop him. Nothing happened. The camera continued its sweep of the room as if there were nothing in front of it.

“How did you know that would work?” Elizabeth asked, moving next to him and looking at the camera.

“I’ll be honest, I was just gonna pull out the wires,” said Jack. “But I noticed it kinda looked like plumbing and I had to reroute the pipes in the house a couple winters ago when one of them burst. Same thing.”

“That’s...that’s really clever.”

He smiled. “Well don't sound so surprised. I’m smart.” Jack turned and tripped on a rock, Elizabeth failing to stifle a laugh. He looked back at her with a small grin.

“What?” she said.

“I think that's the first time I’ve heard you laugh.”

“Yes, well there hasn't really been much to laugh about.”

“I guess not.”

They went upstairs, hearing the off-key jingle of a Gatherer’s Garden from the small office in the corner. The door was locked and Jack rammed his shoulder into it until it broke open. The fake little girls on either side stared blankly back at them. Labelled buttons lined the left-hand side of the machine, offering up various plasmids.

“There’s an Incinerate,” Jack said, running a hand along the buttons. “We don’t have any money do we?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

_“These machines don’t take money,”_ Tenenbaum said. _“You will need Adam.”_

“Who’s Adam?” asked Jack.

_“Not a who, a what. Adam is force behind plasmids. When a man using plasmids dies, his body is left with the remainder--the Adam. This is where the little ones come in.”_

“Oh, is that what the, uh--” Jack mimed a jabbing motion and made a squelching noise with his mouth.

“Yes, that’s what the needles are for,” Elizabeth filled in. “So how do we get Adam?”

_“The little ones produce it naturally. As I told you, by returning them to being their natural state, you absorb the Adam in them._ ”

“Oh, right...If it’s in me then how do I get it in the machine?” Jack asked. Elizabeth examined the machine, noticing a small opening where a change slot would be. A tiny needle, no thicker than a sewing needle, stuck out of it over a tiny dish.

“I think,” she started, looking between him and the machine, “you’ll have to prick your finger.”

“Hm.” Jack got closer, following her line of sight, then held out a finger, poking it gently into the needle and wincing as a small drop of blood fell onto the dish. The machine came to life, lights flashing behind the buttons as the statues on the sides laughed. He pressed the button for Incinerate and the machine clunked and whirred, dropping the plasmid out of the hole. Jack filled the syringe and hesitated. “Do you want this one?”

“No, you can take it.” If she was being honest the thought of jabbing a needle in her arm put her on edge. Not to mention it brought up a few memories she'd rather forget. Jack stuck himself, shooting the plasmid into his system and flames flew up his forearms from his fingertips. He wavered, letting out a startled cry, but when the fire faded he remained unharmed and on his feet.

“Not as bad as the other one,” he said, looking his arms over.

“The first one is always the worst,” Elizabeth agreed. “But now we have fire and we can get through to downstairs.”

As they left Eternal Flame, a clatter rang out beside them and they saw a splicer, having knocked over a trash can. She made eye contact with the two of them before raising her gun with a shout. They scattered in two different directions, Jack looping around the back of the splicer while Elizabeth kept her distracted. Jack brought his wrench down on her head and she crumpled to the ground like a rag doll, dropping the gun. He stared down at her, still holding the wrench in the air.

“I think I hit her too hard…” he muttered. He nudged her with his foot, face going pale. “I think I killed her.” He looked up at Elizabeth, eyes wide. “I didn't mean to do that--oh my god--”

Elizabeth rushed over, taking his shoulders and shaking him lightly. “In this kind of situation it's either you or them. Sometimes there's no other way out. She was trying to kill you,” she said gently. “It's a terrible feeling that never really goes away, but if you make it out in the end maybe it was for the better.”

He nodded but she could still feel the tension in his shoulders.

“We should keep going. We need to head downstairs,” she prompted him. He nodded again, stealing one last glance at the body of the splicer before following Elizabeth down the stairs. Jack threw a blaze of fire at the ice wall blocking their path and a few seconds later the way was clear, though foggy. Once the fog cleared they could see a dark, open room with a sign pointing to Dandy Dental. There was a single spotlight focused on a shotgun in the middle of the floor. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at it.

“Ah look, another gun,” Jack said, striding towards it. “We could use tha--”

No sooner had he picked it up than the lights cut, sending them into complete darkness. Thinking fast, Elizabeth used Peeping Tom and spotted Jack’s blurry figure right where he had been--as well as four or five splicers starting to surround them. She took a step forward and the lights came back, Jack pointing the shotgun directly at her face.

“What are you--?”

“ _Duck!_ ”

Elizabeth dropped and Jack fired, buckshot exploding into the face of the splicer behind her. She turned as he fell, dropping the Tommy gun he was holding. She snatched the gun from the floor, taking out a splicer that was running at Jack. Jack shocked another and Elizabeth bashed the splicer on the head with the butt of her gun. The two of them stood back to back, ready for another attack but none came. The two remaining splicers ran off and they were alone again, letting out a sigh of relief.

“If there are any Little Sisters down here, hopefully that didn’t scare them away,” Elizabeth said, lowering the gun. Jack nodded in agreement. The two of them searched the bottom floor, ducking a few cameras, but ultimately came up empty. At least until they made their way into Dandy Dental. Behind the reception desk in what looked like a testing room was another Gatherer’s Garden, this one clearly having been ransacked. A plasmid sat in the front somehow left behind by the splicers.

“Telekinesis,” Jack read, picking up the bottle. He offered it wordlessly to Elizabeth who, again, denied it, so he loaded up the syringe. Elizabeth wandered into the rest of the clinic, gun ready, but no splicers appeared. She noticed something hanging on the wall through a dark office window. The door was unlocked and as she got closer she realized it was a crossbow. Further inspection yielded a box of tranquilizer arrows in a desk drawer. She put the arrows in her bag, leaving the Tommy gun behind in place of the crossbow, weighing it in her hands. When she came back out to find Jack, he was playing with his new plasmid, a turret-like machine firing tennis balls at him. He missed half of them, getting nailed in the shin, then the gut before he got his timing right. Jack looked up, noticing her standing there and dodged the next ball, hopping over the reception desk.

“Wonder why that’s in dental,” he said as they headed for the stairs. “Weird place to put it.”

They reached the top of the stairs, heading to the left to start around when the unmistakable cry of a Little Sister rang out followed by the roar of a Big Daddy. Elizabeth bolted towards a door finding it jammed. She took a few steps back, getting a running start and rammed her shoulder into it, forcing it open.

“Come on! That came from over here!” she called. Jack followed after her, noticing a sign pointing to the surgery wing, and the two of them skidded to a stop, shielding their faces as the big daddy flew through the window next to them. It hit the ground hard, definitely dead, but they had little time to notice as the little girl screamed again. A splicer stalked towards her, a crowbar in hand. Elizabeth shot him with the crossbow and he dropped like a sack of flour, the girl turning her attention to them with wide eyes. They went through the door, approaching her slowly, setting their weapons down to show they weren’t a threat. Jack knelt down when he was only a couple feet away, holding out a hand like he’d seen the Big Daddy do earlier. The girl looked at his hand with suspicion but shuffled forward and took it anyway. He gently set his free hand on her head, a soft glow surrounding her as he turned her back to normal. Jack let her go and she stared at them both with wide brown eyes before bolting to the vent.

“One down,” he said, getting back to his feet. They watched her crawl into the vent, making sure she was out of sight before they made their way back to the pavilion. They cleared the other clinics and alcoves, and, having found nothing, started back towards the entrance.

“I think there was only one here,” Elizabeth said at the radio. “Unless there’s a secret door we’re missing.”

“ _No secret doors I am aware of,_ ” Tenenbaum replied. _“But I could have sworn I was seeing--”_

Booming steps started down the hall ahead of them and a Big Daddy came into view, a Little Sister on his back.

_“Ah, there it is.”_

Jack and Elizabeth ducked behind a wall, trying to keep out of his sight. They made sure their weapons were loaded, then moved to another hiding spot where they could watch the Big Daddy.

_“Be careful. This one will not be as easy as the last._ ” said Tenenbaum. _“Please, be doing me a favor, don’t die.”_

“We’ll do our best,” Jack said. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. The last one was dead before they even spotted it. And if the one in the theater was anything to go by, he was not looking forward to this fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly really proud of how Ryan's dialogue turned out. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed that, and I'll get the next chapter up as soon as possible! Part of it is already written so there's that


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